Snow Sports: Jess Racing snocrosser slams onto ESPN

Snocross is the nastiest, noisiest, most high octane — and for many spectators, the most thrilling — snow sport out there.

Drivers on massive, powerful snowmobiles race around deeply rutted and moguled tracks at 60 mph-plus, launching repeatedly off jumps up to 100 feet tall, with spectacular passing moves and crashes punctuating the action.

Derek Ellis, 25, a pro snocross driver employed by the Westminster-based Jess Racing snocross team and one of the top drivers in the country, is competing in probably the biggest snocross race of all this week at the winter X Games in Aspen, Colo.

The nationally televised event (ESPN is the event’s sponsor) starts today and runs through Sunday and features winter action sports, including freestyle snowboarding, skiing and snowmobiling. Catch the snocross qualifying heats and final Sunday from 2 to 6 p.m.

Carl Jess, the team’s owner, started Jess Racing in 2006 basically as a format to allow his son, Montana, now a 16-year-old Montachusett Regional Vocational School student, to compete. In the fall, Jess, who runs CJ’s Auto Body in Fitchburg, hired Ellis as his first pro driver.

Montana Jess competes on the Pro-Lite circuit, which features drivers ages 16 to 23 and allows only stock 600cc sleds. Last year, the younger Jess — like the top driver his age in Massachusetts — won three Sport class championships and finished on the podium at an event in Duluth, Minn.

Ellis is in the Pro Division, where drivers ride tricked out 600cc sleds that have been modified with massive suspensions, bigger handlebars and widely spaced front runners.

It is the first X Games for Ellis, an Idaho native who has been based out of Fargo, N.D. for the last three years, though, he has raced in many national events. This season he has been competing mostly in Eastern races.

Ellis has been racing since he was 10.

Since then, “I haven’t worked a day in the winter in my life,” he said. Ellis drives heavy equipment on a 4,800-acre soybean and corn farm in North Dakota during the summer.

In addition to a regular paycheck from Jess Racing, Ellis — who is living with the Jess family for the winter — gets periodic checks from the team’s main equipment sponsor, Arctic Cat, depending on his finishes. He has received $4,000 and $5,000 payouts, not bad for a day’s work.

Ellis works out in the gym year-round to prepare for his grueling sport and handling his 500-pound machine in the air and on the snow, and he has served as a role model and teacher for Montana. They train in Vermont and race in New York, New Hampshire and at national events in the Midwest.

His strength, he says, “is the competitive aspect and trying to make myself better and faster by putting in the effort in the gym and on the track.”

“It’s pretty exhausting,” he said of the sport.

At the X Games, Ellis will be competing under the Arctic Cat factory team umbrella on a sled shipped to Aspen from Minnesota.

“My goal is to make the main event and make my friends and family watching on TV pumped,” he said.

Ellis’ parents and sister and her family will be there in person, but Carl Jess won’t make the trek, though he’ll be watching on ESPN.

“I hired Derek to work for us so I could teach my son how to go faster,” Jess said.

The younger Jess, who Ellis said is faster at his age than he was, has a good future in the sport, his father and Ellis said.

“Snocross is one of the best-paying motor sports. It pays better than motocross or quad racing.” Jess said.

Even though Ellis and Montana are both experienced drivers, Jess said he still can add value as a team owner, mentor and coach at times.

“He’s been in the sport longer than I have,” Jess said of the new X Games athlete. “But he’s 25. He’s still a kid.”

It’s not just about the snow.

Princeton’s Wachusett Mountain Ski Area is more than a skiing and riding hub, as many ski areas are in winter when they essentially become entertainment venues.

The ski area features regular musical performances in the base lodge’s Coppertop Lounge and an array of off-hill activities all winter, and summer for that matter.

Last Wednesday, the band Fun., which has been nominated for multiple Grammy Awards, hit Wachusett just before it played the White House for President Obama’s inauguration earlier this week.

Fun. played a private show for 150 contest winners, sponsored by Wachusett and radio station WMJX-FM 104.1.

Wachusett and the radio station previously brought the popular ski-area touring band O.A.R. to the Central Massachusetts ski emporium.